is a historic

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

in the city of

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The

Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum The is an art museum founded in 1968. It was reconstructed in 1996. It is located near Shukkei-en in Hiroshima, Japan. Access *Hiroden Hiroden Shukkeien-mae Station, Shukkeien-mae Station *West Japan Railway Company, JR Hiroshima Station Hiros ...

is located adjacent to the garden.

History

Construction began in 1620 during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

at the order of Asano Nagaakira, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of the Hiroshima '' han''. Shukkei-en was constructed by Ueda Sōko, who served lord Asano as chief retainer (

karō were top-ranking samurai officials and advisors in service to the ''daimyōs'' of feudal Japan. Overview In the Edo period, the policy of ''sankin-kōtai'' (alternate attendance) required each ''daimyō'' to place a ''karō'' in Edo and anothe ...

) of the domain and as a tea master. Since the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, the garden served as the villa of the Asano family. When under

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

the

Imperial General Headquarters The was part of the Supreme War Council (Japan), Supreme War Council and was established in 1893 to coordinate efforts between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during wartime. In terms of function, it was approximately equi ...

were relocated to Hiroshima, the emperor briefly lodged at the villa. The gardens were opened to the public, and in 1940 the Asano family donated them to Hiroshima Prefecture. Being a short walk from

ground zero A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...

of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Shukkei-en suffered extensive damage, and then became a refuge for victims of the war. After renovations, it reopened in 1951.

Gallery

Image:HiroshimaShukkeien7264.jpg, Image:HiroshimaShukkeienLantern7324.jpg, Image:HiroshimaShukkeienYokihiLantern7331.jpg, Image:Shukkeien atomic bombing.JPG,

External links

庭園の写真 - 縮景園
(in Japanese) {{Authority control Parks and gardens in Hiroshima Gardens in Hiroshima Prefecture